Artist Spotlight: Jesse Boykins III

Jesse Boykins III is one of those artists who we’ve had our eyes on for a while, but never got round to endorsing it on paper. So with a new album imminent, we thought it the right time. Two things to clarify first: he is in fact the third Jesse in the Boykins family and yes, his hair is very much real. Image aside, his voice is silky smooth with an alarming range, and he’s worked with an impressive collection of producers including Machinedrum, Gold Panda and Melo-X. He met the latter at RBMA’s latest workshop in Madrid, where they worked on Perfect Blues (see below), part of their collaborative full-length, Zulu Guru. He’s admitted to having hundreds of songs in the pipeline so we’ve done pretty well to it narrow to just five for you (plus remixes), including a very new James Blake/Feist cover.

Zulu Guru is due out on Ninja Tune on 5 November and can be pre-ordered now at the Ninja Store.